I started this script and can't get any further. Er. Just FYI, Sun Tzu wrote The Art of War and Confucius was a philosopher. I'm looking at 8 pages for Wish, including the coverpage. I want it to be an Elf themed story but AS IT IS I have no plot and no final punchline. I've fucked a little with history (as I usually do) as it is likely that if Sun existed at all he'd have been a tad younger than Confucius (although many see them as contemporaries). Still I rather like this set up. BUT. I don't know where it's going or where it'll end, and you're always so helpful...

#0
Coverpage image

#1
//[China, 6th century BCE]//
//[It's a nice sunny day in the State of Lu]//
//[And nice Mr Sun Tzu has decided to take some time out from writing his opus on The Cute Things Fluffy Kittens Do and indulge in a spot of gardening.] Tzu in the garden, humming to himself as he waters the plants. Maybe singing some trashy pop song.//
//Tzu gets hit in the head with a spray of water.//

#2
//Shadow over Tzu as he tries to get groggily to his feet, groaning. Shadow: "Heeeeeey Mister Tzuuuuuu!"//
//"Want me to help you up?! - Oops!" Little Confucius totally wedgies Sun Tzu as he tries to help him up by the seat of his pants.//
//Sun: "Why you little..." Confucius looking innocent: "Mr Tzu! Please, your virtue! Why, 'The superior man does not, even for the space of a single meal, act contrary to virtue. In moments of haste, he cleaves to it. In seasons of danger, he cleaves to it.'"//
//Confucius riding gleefully away on some kind of BCE tricycle a la Dennis the Menace with Sun Tzu screaming, "CONFUCIUS, YOU'RE A MENACE!"//

#3
//{That night} Tzu begins writing his Fluffy kittens books//
//Confucious pops up and spouts an annoying aphorism of his, Tzu tells himself, "Think happy thoughts, happy thoughts..."//
//{Even in the conservatory, Sun Tzu cannot escape the boy's taunts.} Tzu getting madder in the conservatory as Confucious blurts stuff through the window.//
//{Finally - INSERT AN APHORISM, like, much as the lily must bend to accomodate a strong wind, or something similar} Sun screams, "I've had enough! GO AWAY, YOU LOATHSOME CHILD!" And knocks over the bonzai he's been watering.//

#4
//He runs outside, yelling, YOU MENACE...//
//And is suddenly face to face with the Elf, who is looking ethereal and cool//
//Sun: "Wh-who are you?" Elf: "I am Lady Amethyst Moonrose, the elven tree-spirit of your bonzai."//
//Sun, fearful: "What do you want from me, my lady?"//
//Elf: "To begin with you could REPLANT ME YOU HAIRY IDIOT"//

5
//{Later, after a quick replanting, Sun Tzu speaks to the Elf} Sun is finishing up telling the Elf about the Confucious problem. I'm not sure exactly what this page will be like, but I need the Elf to explain the Art of War; My kind have trained for years in the arts of war and for your kind replanting, I will teach you of... etc etc... Sun may say, But he's only a child and Elf will say, OUR WORST ENEMIES or some such.

6
This one should be a set up like home alone, later, when Confucius comes to see Sun the next day and suddenly gets caught in all these traps.

8
{And so it came to pass that Sun Tzu put the writing of his book on Fluffy Kittens on hold for the time being...} Sun and Elf watching Confucius run off into the distance. Elf giving him advice on the Art of war, etc. Sun is like, so tell me more about this art of war and Elf is like, wait, I hear the kids in the kindergarten down the road have been littering, while sharpening her sword, or something like that. THE END.

I want to introduce Elf into the 'history' of Blackaby in this story. The other characters do kind of revolve around each other and interact directly but Elf is pretty much always going to be on the outer with her own little range of THE ADVENTURES OF LADY AMETHYST MOONROSE stories.

So please give me a hand to see hwere this can go in the next five pages, I'd like a cool settlement (rather like the other Elf story with Atlantis innit). Thank you!!!

Last edited by Blackaby on Wed Jan 18, 2006 4:36 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Elf should appear in it... since it's her era... not sure about the others. I don't think any of them would concievably fit into the story, except possibly Roland (or maybe even Maudiah?) Dunno where to go from there or how to fit things in... I want this to be a main thing for Elf, since she's the tree spirit of Tzu's bonzai... maybe she hears him being po'd and decides to help or something...? I dunno. :|

I friggin hate denis the menace. Or at least I do now, can't remember it from 20 years ago. Anyway, a few thoughts...

1. Could the work on the bunnies be taken further? Is this before or after the art of war? Will watching bunnies cockblocking each other lead to revelations on the art of battle? Will Elf lady be the unwitting test of his studies?

"See what happens when you extend an olive branch to that man holding a sword over there"

*Whack*

"Ahhh, he chop off hand, vary good, vary good."

*Sun tzu writes down his conclusion that it's best to just kick ass*

2. Wasn't Jessica going to be in this one?

3. The obvious thing to do for confucious is to give him one liners that float around, such as "Man who stand on toilet, high on pot", but something, you know, that hasn't been repeated more times on the internet than badger badger badger badger badger badger bad.... ....

4. I seem to recall that a lot of the old woodcut prints in old japan (possibly china too) featured demons with blue skin and large wavy hair which may or may not have been red. I'm just saying is all.

I think I may just make it about Elf... I know she'll be playing in and out of stories with the others but I think I want this one to be her specific

Also I'll have to open with a Diary entry...

And I still don't have a punchline, like I did for the other one... with a cool set up and a screwed up finish, I relaly liked that other Elf storyline... I need another hidjus revelation for her or something...

Mohism looks cool. Though she isn't quite as hippie as... well, Angel and Maudiah... she's more of a ninja fanatic. fehehehe. It's not about universal love, it's about KILL ING PEOPLE WHO LITTER.

Well, just as Sun and Confucious, I imagine the Mohism guys were still "fine tuning" things. But then, I guess the story shouldn't entirely be about her influencing history.

I haven't really read biographies on either or anything, but the more I think about it the more I like the idea of Tsu and Confucious having some kind of rivalry with thier ideas. Perhaps Confucious' inclusion could much be the same as Tsu's "tests", so whereas Tsu's original thoughts fail to help him formulate the alternative, Confucious twists the outcome into seeing it as a good thing for his own ideas.

That is, unless, you want his inclusion to just show him as a raging asshole. In which case he probably shouldn't be on too long being the whole "hey, confucious f*cked you mother!" thing would wear thing unless you really new how to carry it.

I suppose I should have more faith.

edt: yeah, when I asked about Blackaby and Jessica I was getting mixed up, you've got a mention of a japanese story that involves them on the "order" thread and I got mixed up.

Just riffing here. Going to see if there is a way I can tie this into the original quote from the Analects of Confucius that got me thinking about this in the first place...

3) The tree could be an end of the page peace offering from Confucius the Menace after Sun Tzu's newly developed Art of War brings him to his scabby knees. Of course the tree actually belongs to Confucius's father who demands he get it back.

4) Elf likes Sun because he takes care of her tree as opposed to that little shit Confucius who always pulled her leaves off. She comes to see him as a sort of father figure. Of course, TRAGEDY STRIKES!

5) Confucius, in an attempt to get Sun out of his heavily fortified home, scatters leaflet copies of Sun's unpublished work, The Cute Things Fluffy Kittens Do, in the street.

Sun drops dead of a heart attack. Confucius sneaks in to get tree. Elf leaps out of tree intent on killing Confucius for causing the death of the most intelligent, most serious, most studious man she ever knew.

6) Confucius laughs and relates to her the story of Sun's wild youth (as related to him by his own father, Sun's old drinking buddy). He finishes with the admonition...

"When your father is alive, observe his will. When your father is dead observe his former actions. If, for three years you do not change from the ways of your father, you can be called a 'real son." (from the Analects of Confucius 1:11) But you of course are a girl, so don't bother."

7) So of course in that (Oh no I won't! Oh no you won't! Oh yes I will!)cartoon logic kind of way...
"I can do anything any boy can do!" Elf races off to the nearest rice wine liquor store.

8) Elf winds up in some Buddhist bonzai rehab after her tree gets all sickly from the drinking and smoking and drunken trysts. Perhaps as a post script we learn that after the British occupation of Hong Kong, Beatrix Potter somehow wound up with the only surviving copy of Things Fluffy Kittens (or Bunnies) Do and turned it into Peter Rabbit.

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...

...

Oh, well, I tried.

[edit: tried to make this roughly conform to pages, but some of the pages seem busier than others]

Nice! I'm going to have to do some research for this one; costumes, buildings, and so on. Luckily I have a stack of old kung fu flicks to guide me. That and I need to practice drawing Elf. I'm going to print this out and do a few lay outs. I can be as lackadaisical as I like when drawing my comic, but I have to pull out all the stops for this. All the other artists thus far have set the bar pretty high.

Now before anybody panics, I'll point out that her nudity is concealed in the final copy, as you should see shortly... I just couldn't resist making this dupe as I was inking it. I figured you guys didn't want any female nudity in the strip without a damn good plot excuse. But the precedent had already been set. Leave it to Wish to figure out a way to slip a coed sorority pillow fight into a story about ancient China.